About Me

Thursday, May 20, 2010

. . . Like It's 1999: Fort Lauderdale 1999

I'm trying to recall that year, nineteen ninety-nine. I think it must have been a good year, what with the end of the century and all that. I recall people were worked up about Y2K, where supposedly all the world's computers would crash--which of course did not happen (though considering 2000 to about 2009, maybe it would have been better if they had).

Let's see. In 1999 we were living in Fort Lauderdale. We had our house and M.R. the cat was still alive. The girls would have been 8 and 6, respectively and Fru and I were just starting our forties. We felt settled by then in South Florida, but it was still new to us just the same. I would have been finishing up my MFA and teaching, Fru still at SunTrust Bank. The girls would be at Virginia Shuman Young Elementary.

Exciting stuff.

Really, things were good, pleasant, calm. Come the next decade, a lot of bad would happen. Bad for the large sense of the world and for the USA, but also quite a bit of personal bad as well, for First Daughter and Fru and my family. Not horrible bad, but bad just the same. But all through 1999, none of that was even a hint in our minds.

I do recall the end of that year. Fru's family came down to visit for Xmas and her brother, his wife and their son stayed into New Years. We had a good time. Fru was very happy because her family had come--her father and his wife and I think maybe even her sister and niece, maybe even her aunt and uncle from Highland, IL had come down that year--and we'd had a big Xmas, the girls were happy to have family about, the weather had been good and so on. AND IT WAS 1999!

We celebrated the end of the year at our house. Fru had bought all this Year 2000 stuff: cups and plates, paper glasses, all this little plastic confetti shaped into flamingoes and 2000 and New Years and palm trees. All tacky and kitschy (which is not Fru). She wanted us to have fun. And we did. When the end of 1999 came we yelled and donned the funny cheap glasses and hats and used the noisemakers, we tossed the thin/hard plastic confetti into the air--all in our house in front of the television set--and then that was that. The 90's were over with.

I really remember that confetti. It went all over, stuck to anything remotely like fabric, fell down into any crevice or crack.

I think it was maybe 2006 when I found the last remaining flamingo/palm tree/2000 piece of confetti in our living room. That last vestige of 1999.